Newcomer
04-11-2007, 08:42 PM
Good writing is good writing, however once past this stumbling block, I would like to pose the question: Could you identify the author by his/her style whether male or female?
The corollary question is how successful are the authors who write from inside the skin of the other?
Laying aside the truism that we are more alike than different, my premise is based more on science than art, not that it could not be approached from that view point. The findings of neuroanatomy in the late part of the 20th. century, have identified several important differences: the female corpus colossum is significantly larger in the female brain than in the male, leading to the supposition that females utilize more fully both hemispheres than the males. The aural structure is significantly different in that females can simultaneously differentiate two closely related sounds while the male brain focuses on a single sound. Approximately 30 percent of females have 4 cones in the retina vs. the standard 3 of red, green and blue. These can differentiate a shade in the red spectrum not discerned by the male visual system. Lastly the sense of smell is more acute in the female than in the male. There may be more differences but these are sufficient to suppose that perception and therefore memory of these perceptions are generally significantly different in the sexes. Consequently to some degree, that the experience of world should be different in the sexes. Writing is intimately connected with memory and memories are fused with emotions. This should be reflected in style and substance of prose. Yet my observation is that generally it is not so. Why?
By necessity I have to limit authors to the English language. Jane Austen identified herself as written 'by a lady' and her themes are those of a woman but her style especially in the early works where emotions are concerned, is predominantly a third person descriptive, that is neutral. A passage from Sense and Sensibility will illustrate this, “But Elinor, how are her feelings to be described? From the moment of learning that Lucy was married to another, that Edward was free, to the moment of his justifying the hopes which had so instantly followed, she was everything by turns but tranquil. But when the second moment had passed – when she found every doubt, every solicitude removed – compared her situation with what so lately it had been – saw him honorably released from his former engagement – saw him instantly profiting by the release, to address herself and declare an affection as tender, as constant as she had ever supposed it to be – she was oppressed, she was overcome by her own felicity, and happily disposed as is the human mind to be easily familiarized with any change for the better, it required several hours to give sedateness to her spirits, or any degree of tranquility to her heart.” The style is historic, sexless in emotion and in the end we understand even less of Elinor's emotions. Only in the late works, Emma, does a feminine style emerge, and emotions are told from the first person view.
Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot, wrote under a male pseudonym and early reviewers could not identify the work as written by a woman. This testifies that the question of style is nebulous, depending a great deal on the predisposition of the reader. In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte's theme as well style, in description of emotions as well as locale, is through the eyes of a young woman. The sensibility is feminine. With Virginia Woolf and the stream of consciousness, memory and emotion reflect the mind of the author and the internal as opposed to the descriptive can clearly be identified as feminine.
The corollary question is more interesting. It is of the male writing from the consciousness of the female. Irvin Hove writing a critique of Hardy said “As a writer of novels Thomas Hardy was endowed with a precious gift: he liked women.....he could not imagine a universe without an active, even an intruding, feminine principle.” In Tess we feel the warm, nebulous perception and reaction to her surroundings. It is not general, not rational, consequently not easily explainable and uniquely of Tess. Hardy can give us this insight.
Only Hardy and the Danish author Peter Hoeg, in Smilla's Sense of Snow, come readily to mind. Do you know of any others?
In a review of Peter Hoeg's novel “"The portrait of the woman was very important to me. Writing as a woman is an illusion. It was difficult but it was also fun," Peter Høeg has said. "Longing for a woman is one of the strongest moving forces in the life of a man, so maybe this was an attempt to get closer to a woman, to explore the landscape of a woman."
Two examples do not prove a premise but they do suggest that it is an interesting question.
The corollary question is how successful are the authors who write from inside the skin of the other?
Laying aside the truism that we are more alike than different, my premise is based more on science than art, not that it could not be approached from that view point. The findings of neuroanatomy in the late part of the 20th. century, have identified several important differences: the female corpus colossum is significantly larger in the female brain than in the male, leading to the supposition that females utilize more fully both hemispheres than the males. The aural structure is significantly different in that females can simultaneously differentiate two closely related sounds while the male brain focuses on a single sound. Approximately 30 percent of females have 4 cones in the retina vs. the standard 3 of red, green and blue. These can differentiate a shade in the red spectrum not discerned by the male visual system. Lastly the sense of smell is more acute in the female than in the male. There may be more differences but these are sufficient to suppose that perception and therefore memory of these perceptions are generally significantly different in the sexes. Consequently to some degree, that the experience of world should be different in the sexes. Writing is intimately connected with memory and memories are fused with emotions. This should be reflected in style and substance of prose. Yet my observation is that generally it is not so. Why?
By necessity I have to limit authors to the English language. Jane Austen identified herself as written 'by a lady' and her themes are those of a woman but her style especially in the early works where emotions are concerned, is predominantly a third person descriptive, that is neutral. A passage from Sense and Sensibility will illustrate this, “But Elinor, how are her feelings to be described? From the moment of learning that Lucy was married to another, that Edward was free, to the moment of his justifying the hopes which had so instantly followed, she was everything by turns but tranquil. But when the second moment had passed – when she found every doubt, every solicitude removed – compared her situation with what so lately it had been – saw him honorably released from his former engagement – saw him instantly profiting by the release, to address herself and declare an affection as tender, as constant as she had ever supposed it to be – she was oppressed, she was overcome by her own felicity, and happily disposed as is the human mind to be easily familiarized with any change for the better, it required several hours to give sedateness to her spirits, or any degree of tranquility to her heart.” The style is historic, sexless in emotion and in the end we understand even less of Elinor's emotions. Only in the late works, Emma, does a feminine style emerge, and emotions are told from the first person view.
Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot, wrote under a male pseudonym and early reviewers could not identify the work as written by a woman. This testifies that the question of style is nebulous, depending a great deal on the predisposition of the reader. In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte's theme as well style, in description of emotions as well as locale, is through the eyes of a young woman. The sensibility is feminine. With Virginia Woolf and the stream of consciousness, memory and emotion reflect the mind of the author and the internal as opposed to the descriptive can clearly be identified as feminine.
The corollary question is more interesting. It is of the male writing from the consciousness of the female. Irvin Hove writing a critique of Hardy said “As a writer of novels Thomas Hardy was endowed with a precious gift: he liked women.....he could not imagine a universe without an active, even an intruding, feminine principle.” In Tess we feel the warm, nebulous perception and reaction to her surroundings. It is not general, not rational, consequently not easily explainable and uniquely of Tess. Hardy can give us this insight.
Only Hardy and the Danish author Peter Hoeg, in Smilla's Sense of Snow, come readily to mind. Do you know of any others?
In a review of Peter Hoeg's novel “"The portrait of the woman was very important to me. Writing as a woman is an illusion. It was difficult but it was also fun," Peter Høeg has said. "Longing for a woman is one of the strongest moving forces in the life of a man, so maybe this was an attempt to get closer to a woman, to explore the landscape of a woman."
Two examples do not prove a premise but they do suggest that it is an interesting question.